CRH boss takes home €3.5m

CRH plc chief executive Liam O’Mahony is Ireland’s best-paid chief executive, earning €3.5 million in 2004, putting him more than €1m ahead of any of his peers.

To match the CRH boss’s 2004 earnings, a worker on the minimum wage of €7, working 40 hours a week, would have to work for 238 years and eight months.

Mr O’Mahony’s 2004 remuneration package of €2m was boosted by the payment of a once-off €1.5m bonus related to the company’s performance over the previous five years.

If Mr O’Mahony had met the “exceptionally challenging goals” of the incentive plan, then he would have received a bonus of €1.8m at the end of the five-year period in December, 2004.

The CRH boss has signed on for another two-year special bonus deal. CRH’s annual report shows Mr O’Mahony will receive a pension of €700,000 a year when he reaches retirement age, based on current figures.

CRH had sales of €12.8 billion in 2004, generating pre-tax profits of €1bn.

The report shows that Mr O’Mahony’s and his fellow executive directors’ pay package, plus annual bonuses, hit €6.7m in 2004, up 27%.

AIB’s executive directors received a 21% pay package rise in 2004 while ordinary workers enjoyed a 3% increase under the national pay deal, Sustaining Progress.

Company chairman Pat Molloy’s pay went up 6.6% to €320,000. Mr O’Mahony’s ordinary €2m pay package for 2004 was made up of basic salary and fees of €1,050,000, an incentive bonus of €646,000, a pension contribution of €322,000 and benefits of €21,000.

Two other CRH executive directors earned more than €1m in 2004.

John Wittstock’s total pay package was €1.18m, comprising basic pay of €571,000, a bonus of €428,000, a pension contribution of €114,000, other pay €46,000 and benefits of €16,000.

Tom Hill’s total pay package was just over €1m, comprising basic pay of €595,000, a of bonus €297,000, a pension contribution of €119,000 and benefits of €15,000.

The company has 60,411 employees around the world and the average pay package was €39,145.